


Dudley Dursley and the not at all Unexpected Letter

by Silex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: “If you’re a normal owl you’ll fly away when I open the window,” Dudley said as he stood up, not at all believing that the owl staring at him through the kitchen window was a normal owl.
Comments: 26
Kudos: 256
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Dudley Dursley and the not at all Unexpected Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chauntlucet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chauntlucet/gifts).



There were times when Dudley could go for weeks, or even months without thinking about it, and then there were times when it was all he could think about.

Someday he was sure that Harry’s strangeness would intrude on his life, that something about his cousin had rubbed off on him.

His wife knew that there was some bad blood between the two of them, but that was all he’d told her. The whole story was too unbelievable and though her tolerance for strangeness was far greater than anyone on his half of the family, it wasn’t something you talked about to your wife.

‘ _Oh, by the way, my cousin? The one I can hardly talk to? He’s a famous wizard apparently. Killed some sort of really evil wizard who wanted to take over the world or something twice. Just thought you might want to know. Oh, and I was attacked by invisible dread monsters once because of him. Apparently they’re a thing too._ ’

Because that was bound to make her sleep better at night when she already worried enough about the boys.

Just last week they’d managed to climb up onto the shed roof with an umbrella and a bunch of old bath towels fashioned into improvised parachutes to see if they could fly.

Dudley had asked them why they even thought that was possible and their answer had been that it was windy enough that there might have bene a chance.

Normal boy behavior, nothing to worry about. He’d done things like that when he was their age. Like the time he’d set fire to the backyard playing with a magnifying glass. His parents had blamed Harry of course, but it had been the two of them watching that little beam of light cut through things – a piece of chocolate, Dudley’s shoelace, a piece of grass. It was like they had their own little laser beam.

And then they set fire to the grass.

So it was hardly strange for him to find the boys jumping off the garden shed when the week before that they’d built _something_ out of some old lumber they’d found somewhere. He wasn’t quite sure what the thing was beyond their telling him it was a trebuchet, like they’d seen on television. What he did know was that it had managed to launch a potato over the roof and hit a car parked on the other side of the street. Luckily no damage had been done.

That night he’d had a talk with his wife about keeping an eye on what the boys were watching.

He’d been trouble at that age so it made sense that his mother would call him randomly, asking if the boys were alright.

And if she was calling more and more often, what of it? It was the start of summer and the boys were home from school and starting to get bored. Of course they’d be finding new trouble to get into and of course his mother knew all about that.

There was no reason to read anything into the pointed way she said _alright_ , as though trying to make him read further into it than he wanted to.

She always told him that he’d been well behaved, but he remembered the magnifying glass differently than she did, so there was that. Her concern was that he’d been so good as a child and his wife was such a frail, timid thing that they might not be ready for two rambunctious boys.

His mother hadn’t seen his wife chase the neighbor’s dog back home after it chewed through the fence and chased the boys inside, so there was that too.

Seeing her run down the road, broom in one hand, baking sheet in the other like a shield, as she chased the dog that had tried to bite their boys made him wonder if they got some of it from her.

Just because the boys were the same age he and Harry had been when it happened didn’t mean there was any reason for him to worry. There was no reason for him to think about it.

No reason to worry what would he do if _it_ happened, if one of the boys got a _letter_.

There was no reason he shouldn’t enjoy a rare moment of quiet, his wife having gotten tired of the boys bouncing off the walls and not willing to let them play outside unsupervised after nearly falling into the excavation project they’d started in the backyard, something they’d managed in complete secrecy, had taken the boys for a walk. A long walk, just the way she liked. Down to the park she’d said, and then maybe around the pond there.

Dudley usually enjoyed going on walks with her, but not with the boys to the pond in the park. If one of them fell in, or jumped in, and he was there he’d have to dive in after them, even if his wife was already running into the water.

It had happened once already when the boys were much smaller.

There was no reason for him not to enjoy his tea and getting the chance to read the paper without it being ransacked for the comics and crossword puzzle. In fact he was considering starting the crossword himself, just to have the satisfaction of being the one to start it.

A knock on the kitchen window interrupted him, but there was no reason for him to be alarmed by that.

Or at least not unduly so.

The walk might have ended early because of a chance encounter with a mud puddle and now he needed to get some towels and a pot of warm water before anyone would be allowed in the house.

Even with that expectation he didn’t manage to find it in himself to feel surprised when he saw that it wasn’t his wife back from her walk with the boys, but a large, pompous looking owl.

Yellow eyes blinked at him and he understood the expression owlish quite well, more so that he’d ever wanted to.

He looked at the broom, standing in the corner, knowing exactly what his wife would have done if she’d been there. She wasn’t the sort to be afraid of an owl, even one that large.

The owl turned its head, seeming to know what he was thinking, because it fluffed its feathers and spread its wings.

It was a _very_ large owl.

Large enough that it might have been able to carry off the neighbor’s dog and save the whole street a lot of trouble.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to go away?” He sighed, feeling crazy for talking to an owl, but since school ended for the summer he’d been making himself crazy.

About owls.

About his cousin.

About what he’d been through because of his cousin.

And about how it had all started.

With letters and owls.

“If you’re a normal owl you’ll fly away when I open the window,” he said as he stood up, not at all believing it was a normal owl. If it was though he hoped it left at least a feather, because it was the kind of story his wife loved. The kind of story she’d tell the boys when they were younger and couldn’t sleep.

He had stories like that, ones he couldn’t tell because they were too real and because his part in them had been too small.

‘ _And then grandma, grandpa and myself were on the run from evil wizard who wanted to kill us because of your uncle Harry. They were horrible, all in black robes and evil masks and no, I don’t remember much else because the wizards keeping us safe did something to my memory. All to keep us safer they said._ ’

It sounded really pathetic when he thought of it that way.

He opened the window.

The owl hopped inside looking immensely pleased with itself.

It held out its leg, talons like something out of one of his nightmares, spread wide.

An intricate knot bound a carefully rolled piece of heavy, yellowy paper to its leg.

“You want me to untie that?”

The owl hooted.

It was too loud in the kitchen, an enormous sound from an enormous bird.

Then it demonstrated that his help was unnecessary, bending down and hooking its sharply curved beak into the knot, pulling it loose with a single tug.

The paper fell to the floor and unfurled.

The owl’s soundless departure was lost on Dudley as he stared at the floor.

Not one piece of paper, but two.

Two letters identical save for who they were addressed to.

One for each of his boys.

That…

That made things so much more complicated, yet at the same time so much easier.

Picking up the letters he rerolled them and thought long and hard about what to do.

Throwing them away wasn’t an option. As a boy he’d seen where that would go.

Sighing heavily, he walked across the room and picked up the phone.

For a number he never called he certainly remembered it well enough.

Almost as though he’d been rehearsing for it mentally, just in case.

It rang and rang and rang, as though to give him enough for it to sink in how foolish he felt, how all of the things he could think of to say didn’t get across how he felt.

How horribly important this was and how he was sure he would make a mess of it.

Finally, just when he was sure it would go to voicemail and force him to leave a long, embarrassing, rambling explanation, someone picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

To Dudley’s relief it was his Harry and not Ginerva. His cousin’s wife didn’t think terribly much of him and it was difficult to speak to her on the rare occasions they saw each other. Asking her for help was nearly unthinkable.

“Hello Harry,” Dudley winced at how formal and forced he sounded, not at all how he wanted to come across.

“You got a letter,” Harry said right away, because short of a death in the family there was no other reason that he’d call.

“Two,” Dudley whispered, and then, somehow managed to find his voice, “And I was hoping that… you… You could maybe come and visit and explain yourself to the boys before they learn all about you in school.”

There, he’d said it.

Said what he’d known for years, even if he’d pretended not to.

It was an eventuality that he’d knew might come and maybe he’d just been fooling himself.

Harry was silent long enough that Dudley was sure he was going to refuse, or worse, laugh at him.

“Should I,” Harry hesitated, “I will, but should I bring my wand? To give a demonstration?”

Dudley was surprised and relieved that Harry sounded as confused as he felt, “That might help.”

What he didn’t add was that otherwise his wife might get the wrong idea and try to figure things out herself or ask questions that he couldn’t answer.

Harry coming and showing what magic really was…

Dudley thought back to last week and the garden shed.

“Or could you bring your broom? I really think the boys would like that,” Dudley laughed softly at what he was asking, words he never imagined that he’d hear himself utter, “If it’s not too much trouble. I think they’ll be very interested in flying and it’s safe enough. They won’t be able to try repeating that at least.”

Except Dudley then imagined his wife flying down the road after the neighbor’s dog, baking sheet in one hand, normal broom couched under her other arm as she rode the kind of broom that people like his cousin rode, like she was a medieval knight in a jousting match.

Brooms would probably be better common ground than wands.

And less likely to set the backyard on fire.

“I…” Harry must have been holding the phone at arm’s length, or covering the mouthpiece with his hand, because the sound of his laughter was muffled and distant.

Dudley was getting ready to muster a proper sense of righteous indignation when Harry got back on the line.

“You’re boys are obsessed with flying too? You have no idea how much of a relief that is,” Harry laughed, but a tired laugh, “Just yesterday I had to get Al out of a tree. I though he was just hiding, and spent all afternoon looking for him. It turned out that he’d taken his brother’s broom out of the cupboard and crashed it. I never would have found him if not for Ginny noticing that the closet door was unlocked.”

“Mine were on the shed,” Dudley said, surprised at the confidence common ground like that gave him, “They were trying to use an umbrella and some bath towels as a parachute.”

“An umbrella parachute?” Harry sounded incredulous, “Where did they even get that idea? Ginny’s told me I can’t give the kids books about nonmagical inventions just in case the boys try to make something. Last week I caught Al and his brother making plans to build a rocket. They’d drawn it all out, even planned to put a garden gnome in it to pilot he thing.”

Yes, it was strange having common ground with his cousin after all these years, but it felt good.

“My boys built something that sent a potato over the roof,” Dudley said, not without a hint of pride.

“Oh no,” Harry gasped, “Hide it away before I visit. If my kids see it the Department of Magical Creatures will be after me for creating flying gnomes.”

Flying gnomes did sound awful, but the conversation itself was going far better than anything Dudley could have imagined. It wasn’t strange at all, because apparently, magical or normal, boys would be boys and it was nice to have someone to talk to about that.

And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late to, if not make amends with his cousin, at least find a way to be on better terms with him.


End file.
